Zima Blue and Other Stories Read Free Page A

slightly less than two-fifths of Earth's - not enough to make much difference if you were planning on falling more than a few metres - but it was enough to ensure that Martians grew up experiencing few of the bruising collisions between bone and ground that people on Earth took for granted. Martians viewed heights the way the rest of humanity viewed electricity: merely understood to be dangerous, rather than something felt in the pit of the stomach.

    And I'd been away too damned long.

    'C'mon,' I said. 'Let's check out the tourist junk. My great-greatgrandmother'll never forgive me if I don't send her back something seriously tacky.'

    Grossart and I went into one of the shops that lined the canyon-side wall of the viewing gallery, pushing past postcard stands flanking the door. The shops were busy, but no one gave us a second glance.

    'Christ, look at this,' Grossart said, hefting a paperweight. It was a snow-filled dome with a model of the Hydra parked on a red plastic base. There was even a replica of Grossart, a tiny spacesuited figure not much smaller than the lander itself.

    'Tasteful,' I said. 'Or, at least, it is compared to this.' I held up a keyring, shaped like a sloth if you were feeling generous.

    'No, that's definitely at the quality end of the merchandise. Look.' Grossart picked up an amber stone and read from the label. '"Sloth healing crystal. This gem modifies and focuses the body's natural chromodynamic fields, ensuring mental and physical harmony."'

    'You can't prove it doesn't, can you?'

    'No, but I think Brad Treichler might have a few interesting things to say to the proprietor.'

    I perked up at the mention of the Hydra 's geologist. 'I'd like to meet Treichler as well. And Manuel D'Oliveira, while we're at it. Is it possible?'

    'Of course.'

    'I mean here, today.'

    'I know what you mean, and - yes - it's possible. They're all here, after all.'

    'And you don't mind speaking about them?'

    'Not at all.' He put down the stone. 'Those guys kept me alive, Carrie. I'll never forget the debt I owe them.'

    'I think we all owe them one, in that case.' As I spoke I rummaged through a rack of what purported to be recordings of sloth compositions, some of which were combined with whale sounds or Eskimo throat music. 'Having said that, seeing this must be depressing beyond words.'

    'Why, because I was the first man on Mars?' He shook his head. 'I know how you think I should feel. Like Elvis in Graceland's souvenir shop, inspecting an exquisite plastic dashboard figurine of himself. White jump-suits and hamburgers era, of course.'

    I looked at him blankly.

    'But I'm not horrified, Carrie. As a matter of fact it actually amuses me.'

    I examined a garment displayed prominently on a shelf. My best friend went to Strata City, Mars, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt , it said on the front.

    'I find that pretty hard to believe, Jim.'

    'Then you don't really understand me. What did you think I wanted? Reverence? No. I came to Mars to begin the process of human colonisation. That's why others followed me, because I took that first, difficult step. Oh, and it was difficult, believe me - but I made it all the same.'

    I nodded. Though seventeen years had passed since I'd written the piece on the landing, I remembered it all: how Jim Grossart had left Earth on a privately funded expedition done the cheap way - done, in fact, more cheaply than anyone else ever thought possible - with only a vague idea of how to get back from Mars afterwards. His sponsors were going to send out supplies, and then more settlers, until there was a self-sustaining colony. Eventually they'd send a bigger ship to take back anyone who wanted to return, but the expectation was that few people would plan on leaving for good. And that, more or less, was how it had happened - but Grossart's crossing had been every bit as difficult as it had been expected to be, and there had been enough crises along the way to push him to the edge of